Morgan's findings provide strong evidence that inhaled diketone vapors can produce airway fibrotic disease and support a causal relationship between workplace exposure to high concentrations of diketones and the development of bronchiolitis obliterans, according to John Morris, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.

Popcorn workers lung, or bronchiolitis obliterans, is a severe, disabling and often fatal lung disease experienced by factory workers who produce or handle diacetyl, the artificial butter flavoring in popcorn.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, which is a unit of the Centers for Disease Control, conducted tests on rats to determine whether inhaling butter vapors causes plant workers to develop the lung disease bronchiolitis obliterans.

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